‘They have him by the balls’: The internet pours mockery on Sean Spicer’s claim that Trump is ‘tough’ on Russia

Facebook employees fumed with anger and regret on an internal messaging system on Jan. 6, as they blamed the company for contributing to the Capitol insurrection.

"This is not a new problem," one employee wrote on Facebook's Workplace messaging system, according to a new report from the Washington Post. "We have been watching this behavior from politicians like Trump, and the — at best — wishy washy actions of company leadership, for years now. We have been reading the [farewell] posts from trusted, experienced and loved colleagues who write that they simply cannot conscience working for a company that does not do more to mitigate the negative effects on its platform."

On Friday, NBC4's Scott MacFarlane, the lead reporter covering the prosecution of the rioters in the January 6 Capitol insurrection, reported that a judge has said he wants the sentences for the Capitol defendants to "hurt."

"Today it was sentencing for Lori and Thomas Vinson of Kentucky," said MacFarlane in a Twitter update. "Both pleaded guilty to the lowest level of misdemeanors from January 6th. Unlawful picketing and parading. Both asked for leniency, both expressed remorse, and they got some leniency from the judge. Five years probation, but it's what the judge said. And it was the other thing he did that was so striking."

Former president Donald Trump and his GOP supporters are hoping to rely on a tactic that's common in Russia to return him to the White House in 2024, according to one prominent expert on authoritarianism.

"As someone who follows contemporary Russia, there is a Russian phrase that comes to mind, which is the 'administrative resource,'" author and Yale University history professor Timothy Snyder told MSNBC on Friday. "What the administrative resource means in Russian is that sure, you have an election, but the people who are running the election are going to determine how the election turns out. What the Republicans are going for is precisely that thing, the administrative resource."